Posted
by
Unknown Lameron Wednesday October 30, 2013 @10:12AM
from the reality-calling dept.

itwbennett writes "Taiwan is demanding Apple revise its mapping software and remove a label that describes the island as a province of China, rather than as a sovereign state. The complaint was lodged after local media reports said that users on the island had noticed the change in Apple's latest iOS and Mac OS versions. 'The maps don't acknowledge Taiwan as its own nation. We voiced our disapproval, and hope Apple will make the change,' an official with Taiwan's foreign ministry said Wednesday. This isn't the first time such a mistake was made. Google also labeled Taiwan as a Chinese province in 2005."

And coerces the Chinese, to the point that we've had chinese developers walk away from projects that refused to bow to the Chinese version of reality (probably because they were afraid of repercusions if they didn't).

The ROC and the PRC, recall, were united for a time under Dr. Sun Yat Sen and they both claim the same territory as that original, united ROC claimed. That means both officially define Taiwan as a province of China, and themselves as the lawful government over all the provinces of China. This is not new.

But there is also a significant undercurrent of nativist and japanophile sentiment for independence in Taiwan, and not everyone agrees with that de jure interpretation. This faction is not new either and has actually become popular enough to control the government at least part of the time, so it's not hard to find officials asserting the very opposite. It's a very contentious issue. The apparent impossibility of liberating the PRC held territory, and a strong desire not to be absorbed by it, is probably a main cause of the increase in independence sentiment.

I dont live there and am not pretending to be an authority, just a sinophile sharing what I have observed.

Both the government of the People's Republic of China (which controls the mainland) and the government of the Republic of China (which controls Taiwan) believe that Taiwan is a part of China. The two just disagree about who China's rightful government is. I realize that over the past 60 years Taiwan has grown more and more self-contained and has become a de facto state independent of China, but in theory there's nothing either side should object to in portraying Taiwan as part of China.

This is quite simplistic and as a result a little inaccurate. Taiwan has two major political camps, just like the US. They hate each other. The "pan blue" group is the KMT (currently in the majority and holding the presidency) and some aligned smaller parties. The "pan green" group is the DPP and some aligned smaller parties. The previous president was DPP. The problem is that the DPP in general are crazy, independence fanatics who want to announce at every opportunity that Taiwan is its own nation, even if they die as a result (they are not smart enough to realize this might happen). The KMT is more realistic, and reunification is truly their goal, yes, but not now. They look towards maybe 100 years or more in the future for that. China has to change a lot for them to agree to rejoin it. The KMT interprets "one China" in a very different way from China (they define "one China" basically as "Taiwan"). The problem is that the DPP dummies keep trying to say and do things that might get Taiwan invaded and the KMT is much better at playing the "Whatever you say, boss!" game. The DPP fails to recognize that some of what the KMT does (again, they are currently in charge of the government) is not sincere but just designed to placate China. So the DPP constantly accuses the KMT of "selling out" Taiwan to China and trying to secretly reunify them and the KMT fears that if the DPP ever got control of the government again (this is a very realistic possibility in the next presidential elections), their impatience would lead them to do something stupid and get Taiwan invaded. Given the recent posturing by China in the South China Sea, this is not a groundless fear.

ROC government headquartered in Taiwan thinks exactly the same thing. Mainland China is simply temporarily not under its control. Both governments view entirety of China, including mainland and island of Taiwan as their territory.

Not really. The ROC government has for a long time only had seats for districts in Taiwan itself. Really, only the fear of a violent PRC reaction (an invasion would be unlikely but not unimaginable) keeps Taiwan from just declaring itself independent of the rest of China.

Whoa there KMT lapdog, just because President Chen was a bit unrestrained doesn't mean everybody in the DPP is... that's like more than a third of the country, dawg. If you paid attention to Dr. Tsai's campaign she was much more moderate on the independence issue than Chen. She only lost because the chauvinists among the moderates would rather vote for a PRC collaborator than a woman. Keep on playing by the PRC's rules and you too can end up just like the boiling frog SARs. What a future.